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Great stories I started 11 years ago, 17 years old a rookie mechanic in his last year I left my job working for a caravan / motorhome business, sold my 306XTDT and with a £1000 and old wedge shape rover 216 went to the auctions. I bought 3 cars that day 1997 Rover 420 , 1995 Escort 1.3 Petrol, 1996 nissan primera 1.6LX Bought them on the Tuesday day sale, Went to the local rag paper listed them all for the friday paper and sold them all 48 hours later. More than doubled my money. If I had bought 3 sheds that day I would not be where i am today I feel. Loads of ups and downs over the years, but over the last 3 years I have gone from part time sales from home and working as a mot tester to running my own garage and small sales pitch. But now looking to go into the big time. I enjoy the trade, and love going to the auctions and other dealers, some great people.

The famous #19 by Paul Hardcastle [ Sorry showing my age now , for those youngsters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRJFvtvTGEk ] On 1st of July I celebrated 19 Years in business , I can remember my 1st day as if it was yesterday , working from home - 1st thing was to get into the right frame of mind although I was only working from my study at home I had to get dressed in work mode, yeap a shirt and tie ! A few months later I moved into the showroom that I occupy that was Nov 1st 1997. It's been one hell of a roller coaster ride , loving everyday , I think i am a very , very luck man as I love what I do, I look forward to the next day to meet new people and new challenges and what the day brings. The support from family, friends , colleagues and most of all loyal customers has been incredible without that I would certainly not be here. The toughest years were 2006 -2008 due to personal circumstances and then the almighty crash !! I thought long and hard about ' throwing the towel in ' but I'm a fighter , I speak to many people some who think its been an easy journey , others are going through tough times- All I say to everyone is , if you have the passion and dedication you will succeed [ Luck plays some part ,lest not forget about that ] but it won't happen overnight, YOU have to work at it.! Times have changed , back then no websites ! wow can you image that - we have to adapt and keep up or get left behind. The biggest tip I'd give to anyone starting out in any business is be in for the right reasons, passion for what you do and ENJOY , don't be afraid to ask others , others actually want to help and share their knowledge , I just wish these type of forums were about back in those days. So how long have you been in business , what have been your high's - Lows and tips you'd like to share? Umesh

if you do a dvla mot check of those cars that have been seized you quite often find no mot for years or worse lots of serviceable item failures me? i stopped buying seized cars years ago after i bought an astra estate and found it had plants growing out of the carpets,ok serves me right for sticking my hand up but it cured me if they get it seized they know its was going to go sooner or later so will rag em and not spend a penny,often they have lots of petrol cans in the boot and maccy dee wrappers under the seats walk on..............

WHY Would you want to get involved? - as already said , there is ALWAYS a story behind majority of these cars! Keep away would be my advice.

Danny there's a place down the road from me. I spoke to the guy there on Saturday as I bumped into him at the hand car wash we both use. He has not sold a car since the EU brexit stuff and sells quite high end similar stuff to you. Probably doesn't make it any easier but I don't think you are alone. I have certainly been a bit quieter than I would like here. Stay positive, new week and get selling some cars Facebook marketing offer a special offer perhaps just anything to drum up a bit of interest. Good luck.

Got to love a bit of Paul Hard castle remember when that song came out all the do gooders where having a right old moan about the video. Anyway it’s my 25th year in business this year, not always been selling cars but certainly involved in cars started back in the day with a car audio franchise and that soon expanded massively and so did the location we purchased a second hand car sales for us to have room to store all the cars we where working on, with the modern age of cars turning into a mobile pc and almost every car coming with something decent for audio the car audio business took a nose dive so we started to sell the odd banger here and there almost 7 years ago and now that’s the main income for the business. We still dabble and install phone kits reverse sensors and the like for the trade which is a handy source to pick up car stock, but mostly the engineers are fixing window regs and other faults getting the cars prepped for sale these days. As already mentioned you have to keep going and take what ever knocks on your door, my son has just started in the business and is as keen as mustard so I might take a bit of a back seat and carry on building my property portfolio.

I started with £150 in 1989! I too have had plenty of ups & downs yet I always seem to remember the downs for some reason! It is a strange business,most of the time I love it,other times less so but all in all its given me & my family a decent living and I have met some great,some strange and some horrible people over the years. Times have certainly changed Umesh,I remember waiting for the Auto Trader rep to come out with his camera,take one grainy black & white picture,wait until Friday until the magazine came out and pray that they had not messed up the advert (often they did)! Oh the good old days!

Agreed that is a great feeling, i often rub it in a little just for smug factor had a customer look a fiesta last week and she wasnt sure her expert boyfriend thought the pads on the back where a little low ! hmm there drums madam no pads there and as for your expert i would part x him in.